Psychotherapy

Individual Therapy: Strengthening the Mind, Centering the Self

A space to return to yourself, untangle the noise, and build from within.

There are moments in life when outer success no longer masks inner unease. When self-reliance begins to feel like isolation, when high-functioning hides high-anxiety, or when the ways you’ve coped no longer feel sustainable. In those moments, therapy becomes more than a place to process pain—it becomes a place to rediscover who you are underneath the roles, expectations, and survival strategies.

Individual therapy offers a space that is quiet but not passive, reflective but not directionless. It’s a space where your thoughts, feelings, and inner tensions are not minimized or dismissed, but understood. Often, what brings someone to therapy isn’t just stress or sadness—it’s the deeper questions underneath: Why do I keep doing this? Why can’t I feel better? Why does it all feel so hard, even when everything looks fine on the outside?

Through Emotion-Focused Therapy, the process begins not with solutions but with slowing down. Slowing down enough to notice what you’re feeling, what you’re avoiding, and how your emotional world has been shaped—by relationships, history, trauma, culture, and the strategies you developed to survive. This kind of work is not superficial. It doesn’t chase quick fixes or self-help slogans. It seeks the truth of what you’ve carried, and what you’ve needed but never received.

For many clients, psychological assessments are thoughtfully woven into this process. Not as diagnostic tools, but as instruments of self-inquiry. These assessments help surface core patterns—attachment tendencies, stress responses, emotional blind spots—that may be difficult to name in conversation. When used collaboratively, assessments can bring clarity where confusion lives, and language where emotion feels stuck. Insight becomes a form of power, not pathology.

People come to individual therapy for many reasons: exhaustion, anxiety, perfectionism, grief, disconnection, life transitions that leave them unmoored. Sometimes it’s a sense of collapse; sometimes it’s a yearning to grow. But regardless of what initiates the work, the aim is not just to feel better—it’s to know better. To recognize what’s yours and what was handed to you. To respond to life with more freedom, less reactivity. To move through the world with more integrity, emotional depth, and self-trust.

The work is personal. It requires attention, sometimes discomfort. But it’s also deeply affirming. With support, therapy can help you rewire not just your coping, but your relationship to yourself. It is a return to your own voice—quieted perhaps, but not lost.

This is the heart of individual therapy: creating a relationship with yourself that is honest, compassionate, and capable of transformation—not in spite of difficulty, but through it.

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Individual Therapy: Structure, Strategy, and Emotional Insight

Individual therapy is a focused and collaborative process that blends emotional exploration with practical outcomes. While every client’s experience is unique, therapy typically unfolds through a series of structured, insight-driven stages designed to help you identify patterns, access core emotions, and create meaningful change.

Unlike crisis-only models of care, this approach emphasizes long-term growth and emotional resilience. It is particularly well-suited for those who are high-functioning, self-reflective, and motivated to understand themselves on a deeper level—even if that motivation is sparked by burnout, confusion, anxiety, or a sense of disconnection.

What Individual Therapy Can Address

Therapy offers support across a wide range of emotional, psychological, and situational concerns. Common reasons people seek individual therapy include:

• Chronic stress, overwhelm, or burnout

• Anxiety and persistent worry

• Difficulty setting boundaries or prioritizing self-care

• Low self-esteem, self-doubt, or imposter feelings

• Emotional reactivity or difficulty managing anger or shutdown

• Perfectionism, procrastination, or indecision

• Processing trauma or complex relational histories

• Navigating major life transitions, identity shifts, or career changes

• Persistent patterns in relationships that feel stuck or painful

Symptoms are often entry points—but the focus of therapy is deeper. The goal is to understand where these responses come from, how they function in your life, and how to create new emotional habits that are aligned with your values and needs.

Emotion-Focused Therapy: Why Emotions Come First

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) guides much of the work in individual sessions. While it draws on principles from attachment theory, neuroscience, and psychodynamic work, EFT remains focused on a core insight: change happens through emotional experience, not just intellectual understanding.

This means that therapy isn’t about talking around problems—it’s about moving into the emotional center of them, where long-standing patterns are stored. When you access those core emotions in a safe and structured environment, they can be processed, reinterpreted, and shifted in ways that lead to lasting change.

This process is especially useful for individuals who:

• Feel stuck in old emotional responses

• Struggle to understand why they feel what they feel

• Have difficulty tolerating certain emotions (anger, sadness, vulnerability)

• Want to move beyond insight into actual transformation

Integrated Psychological Assessment

In select cases, the therapy process may be enhanced with brief, targeted assessments designed to support insight, not diagnosis. These assessments are tailored to the individual’s goals and used collaboratively to inform the therapeutic work.

Examples include:

• Personality inventories that clarify coping styles and interpersonal dynamics

• Stress response or emotional regulation profiles

• Values-based assessments to support clarity around decision-making

• Narrative and attachment-oriented tools to explore identity, memory, and emotion

Assessment results are always discussed in session, used to generate therapeutic dialogue, and applied meaningfully—never mechanistically. They function as mirrors, not labels, offering structure for the internal work and language for experiences that have long remained implicit.

A Strategic, Personalized Process

While the work of therapy is emotional, the process itself is structured. Typically, therapy unfolds across a sequence of stages:

1. Intake and Orientation
   An initial session to explore goals, current concerns, and therapeutic fit. If assessments are used, they are introduced here.

2. Pattern Mapping
   Identification of key emotional patterns, self-beliefs, and relational themes. This includes early history, defense mechanisms, and current coping strategies.

3. Emotional Access and Insight
   Sessions begin to focus on the emotional “core” of presenting problems—often working with sadness, fear, shame, anger, or unmet needs that drive present-day reactions.

4. Integration and Shift
   As emotional material becomes more accessible and processed, individuals begin to develop new self-responses, emotional flexibility, and clearer boundaries.

5. Maintenance and Application
   Once key goals are reached, therapy may shift to a maintenance model or end with structured closure. Many clients return at later life stages to revisit their growth with new questions.

This model is adapted flexibly, depending on the client’s pace, goals, and depth of engagement.

Beyond Symptom Reduction

Individual therapy is not simply about reducing distress. It’s about increasing capacity. With consistent, reflective work, clients often report:

• Greater emotional literacy and regulation

• Stronger sense of self and identity

• Renewed motivation and clarity in work and relationships

• A shift from reactive to responsive living

• The ability to experience emotion without being overwhelmed by it

• A deeper connection to one’s values, purpose, and long-term goals

These outcomes are not guaranteed by attendance—they come from engagement. Therapy works best when it’s treated not just as a service, but as a commitment to self-reflection, emotional honesty, and change.

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About Cody Thomas Rounds

Cody Thomas Rounds, M.A., is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Burlington, Vermont. With years of experience supporting individuals and couples, Cody is passionate about helping clients navigate personal challenges, build emotional resilience, and foster healthier relationships. Specializing in both individual and couples therapy, Cody’s approach focuses on guiding people through life transitions, managing stress and anxiety, and deepening self-awareness.

Combining professional expertise with a deep understanding of human behavior, Cody provides thoughtful, tailored counseling services to clients in Burlington and the greater Vermont area. Rooted in evidence-based practices, his work emphasizes personal growth, emotional well-being, and creating lasting, positive change.​​​